Our USA Adventure - Days 46 to 54 - Sonora, Columbia, Bear Valley, Oakland & San Francisco

Columbia old Gold Rush town, still lived in and used as a setting for many films

We enjoyed our stay in Sonora though people kept asking us if we were there to go to Yosemite, we hadn’t realised we were so close! We weren’t, we were there to go to Columbia, an old gold rush town. Part reconstruction, but part original. Part for tourists and part lived in. It was Veterans Day, our equivalent to Remembrance Sunday, so some things were shut, and some started slowly. There was a little service up at the church, seemingly for the locals, but carried out by people in costume. We went, heard all the wars the USA has taken part in, and the names of all the people from Columbia who have died in service. Quite a moving half an hour.

The veterans day parade in Columbia we attended. Very moving

A relatively short journey on Saturday, after Brian had finally managed to get a haircut. Barbers apparently don’t work on Veterans Day! After a stop at the supermarket and at the museum in Coulterville we arrived with Maggie and Fred. Fred had said if we were coming from that direction we would ‘enjoy ‘ the road and he wasn’t wrong. It was amazing, wiggling and winding like an Alpine road. It was lovely to see them both again (and Agatha and Zeph, the cats, obviously) and we were warmly welcomed. The house was lovely. Maggie had said she’d built it, and it turns out she had done a lot of the work herself. The foundations and wooden structure were put in and then she had a house raising day, friends and family in an all out effort to get the walls up. Not regular walls though, hay bale walls, so very thick and very insulating.

Including a gun salute for all those who have died serving their country

We had a lovely relaxed couple of days with them, chatting, eating, a bit of drinking and one morning pulling small fig trees from the creek. Not native and very thirsty! Maggie has 70 acres of land surrounding her house, so there is always something to be done! We love getting involved though, and used two bits of kit we’d never used before. The ‘comealong’ a small winch for pulling out larger trees, and root wrench which clamped onto the stem and levered the roots out, used on smaller trees. Loved it! We followed this with a trip into Mariposa for the lunchtime taco truck and a few bits from the supermarket. Yes, we have done a big loop.

The City Hotel in Columbia. You can still stay here in a living wild west old gold town

Agatha and Zeph (he was Zephyr, till he lost the end of his tail) are 17 and Zeph does look it. Every other day he has a subcutaneous fluid injection, he’s such a good boy, he just sits on Fred’s knee, grumbles a bit, but lets it happen.

Viewpoint over the vast Don Pedro reservoir, looking quite low, as many in water starved California. Beneath those waters is Jacksonville, another old gold rush town, submerged when the dam was built to gather the waters from Woods Creek 

We left them to come across to Oakland, across the bay from San Francisco, and the home of Victor and Gregg. Victor is cruising, but Gregg was up to check on the house and do some family business. They had invited us to use the house as a base when we saw them in Palm Springs, what lovely people. It was great to see Gregg, he’s such a sweetie. We had lunch, chatted a lot and met next doors cat. He seems to live here when the guys are here, and although he’s a bit uncertain of us, he has come in and had lovely evening cuddles.

We briefly stopped at Coulterville on the way to Fred and Maggies to visit the smallish museum, mainly covering the history of the local gold rush ear in this area. Outside is the restored Whistling Billy, an 8 ton wood burning locomotive that spent all his active life hauling gold bearing quartz ore from the Mary Harrison mine just south of the town, He started work in 1897, was abandoned in 1904 and restored in the 1930's. Cute little thing!

We had a day in Oakland on Wednesday, walking to the seafront, mostly to see the tourist information to ask about the best way to get into San Francisco. Sadly it was shut, but it was a pleasant walk. We walked back via the BART station, the train, one of the many travel options, to buy a clipper card for me as my phone wouldn’t support the App. We were doing that when an employee came to help someone else. “How old are you?” He asked of Brian. On hearing 67 he took us through two locked gates to the office for a senior card. This didn’t cost anything, unlike the $3 for mine, and saved about 60% on journeys. What a very nice man. We then continued to the Oakland museum, that G&V support and have free guest tickets for. We must have been there at least three hours, predominantly in the history bit with a quick whip through the natural history section. Very good museum. We continued round the lake, back to the house after a full day out.

Look carefully, you can see the very bendy Highway 49 snaking up the hill below and to the right there. This was a very slow, but very scenic route that was fun to drive as it was so quiet. It reminded me a bit of the mountain drive at the start of the original Italian Job movie - I could hear the accompanying song during that drive: On Days Like These by Matt Monro. See and listen to it here. Close your eyes and imagine!

Thursday we drove to the museum, because it was close to the BART station. Normally expensive, but with the free visitor parking provided by Gregg, a bargain! Train under the bay to San Francisco where we walked round the coast to pier 33 the embarkation point for trips to Alcatraz. Arrived with 5 minutes to spare for the next boat, and got on. A very interesting (though not cheap) trip. It started life as a military prison before becoming the place for the most serious criminals. We had a guide to take us up the hill who was very interesting. We then picked up our audio tour of the prison block itself. It was narrated by guards and some ex prisoners, and was extremely well done. On our return we carried on to Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, for lunch and a look at some sea lions. Back to the station via Coit Tower for a view over to the coast. Sadly the lift was out of order, but it was still a good view from the base. Back to the station, train and home. Another full day out, and we have aching feet again. See a short video of our walk with more photos: click here

At Maggie and Freds at their other home in California. All this is their land (not the mountain in the distance)

Bit of a chill today then, we went out to breakfast before walking round the bit of Merritt Lake we hadn’t done, the best bit as it turns out, birds, and gardens, and slightly less tents occupied by a few of Oakland’s homeless. We were warned not to leave anything in the car, so we haven’t and it’s clear to see why.

We didn't take any photos during our few hours 'gardening', this was on one of our walks round their property

The tree in the above photo had these nuts on them. Can't remember the name now, I'm hoping Fred or Maggie will remind me so I can add it. Edit: Fred tells me it's a species of Chestnut, known locally as Buckeye

Jackie is walking towards one of the many old gold mines dug on this land in the 1860's. Ahead of her is a big hole, now mostly filled in, but Maggie can remember when it was a big open shaft. Can you imagine someone coming from the other side of the country, some from the other side of the world, often taking up to six months to get here, with little money and armed with a shovel, pick and gold pan? You choose a bit of vacant land and dig, hoping to find gold. Some did, many didn't, it's just luck and, no doubt there's still some underground here that's yet to find

And that's sleepy little Bear Valley town over there. Now without a shop or saloon, but back in the 1860's several thousand people lived there hoping to make their fortune. Maggies family have lived here for many years, she grew up here and had her land left to her by her father

This is the house she built with her own hands. Underfloor heating, hay bales for walls, it's very efficient, warm in the winter, cool in the summer

The morning we left. When will we see them again? Here, in the UK or somewhere else in the world?

We drove straight across to Oakland (3 hours) and here we are outside Victor and Greggs house

And there's Jackie encouraging next doors cat

Lake Merritt looking over Oakland (San Fran is behind us)

This is Cleveland Cascade, scenic steps above Lake Merritt that used to have a water feature running down the centre

There's old buildings here...

Very new buildings...

Interesting very old trees...

Quite nice (almost) sunsets

This little squirrel bounced over to Jackie and found a nut next to her

It was very attentive when she called to it

Motionless over the lake looking for his lunch! We identified this as a Black-Crowned Night Heron

There's sculptures

And a Bonsai Tree garden. We loved this little copse. Some of the trees here are over 200 years old, yet only a couple  of feet high

We loved this Air Bee Nbee insect house

But there is another side of Oakland that you can't miss and that's the high number of homeless people living in tents. Here's a small group living in tents under that tree in the park. They are everywhere, on the streets, under bridges, in shop doorways, we often saw them pushing shopping trolleys with all their worldly possessions and, on occasions highly animated individuals high on drugs. We never felt unsafe, but we weren't out after dark and we have been told to leave nothing visible in cars as breakins are common

Yesterday we went on a trip to Alcatraz. We decided to catch the Bart train from Oakland under the Bay to San  Francisco as parking over there is very expensive ($30+ for a day's parking, the return fare via Bart just over $6). Here we are at Pier 33 just boarding the ferry to the island

Had to take a selfi on the ferry. There's Alcatraz behind. Look at my haircut, number 3 as usual. $17 for that, plus a $3 tip. Believe it or not that was actually quite cheap! 

Approaching the island, last used as a prison in 1963, closed down by President John Kennedy as it was too expensive to run

A legacy from those days

Conditions here were pretty grim, but it held some of the most notorious and difficult prisoners. Al Capone everyone can name, but what about George 'Machine Gun' Kelly, Robert 'The Birdman' Stroud or Alvin 'Creepy Karpis' Karpavicz to name but a few?

Each cell was small and sparse, a bed, table, chair, toilet, washbasin and shelf 

Cell number 138. What was special about this one? Look carefully under the wash basin behind that towel handing there. The vent had been removed and a tunnel dug through to the outside using a reinforced spoon. Five prisoners escaped through this and other cells, leaving a wooden head on the pillow. They scaled three walls and got away on a makeshift raft. Two are known to have drowned but three were unaccounted for. Our guide did tell us that there was a 7 knot tidal flow at the time heading towards the Golden Gate bridge and out to the Pacific where great white sharks were circling. He doubts they could have paddled against such a strong current in a makeshift raft. Did they escape or did they drown/get eaten? Certainly they were never heard of again and it did make a good film starring Clint Eastwood called Escape from Alcatraz

This is the old dining hall

These are the kitchens

And this was the menu on 21st March 1963, the last one on the day the prison closed

This was the view prisoners had of freedom not so far away. Apparently on New Years Eve prisoners could hear the noise of people enjoying themselves in the city and watch the fireworks

The antique streetcars still transporting the population up those very steep streets (we didn't do those this time, we did them during our visit 8 years ago)

They do have some very steep hills in San Francisco. Here was a very pretty one with wooden steps,, down from the Coit Tower

This is the Coit Tower. We walked up the very steep hill to it, but didn't go up the tower. The lift was broken so we'd have had to walk up 13 floors. Walking up was not the problem for us, good exercise, time was our problem. It was 3:30pm, we had a half hour walk to the train back and our car parking in Oakland ran out at 4:30pm. Not really enough time! No photos from up there as those trees at the base were just too high. Another time maybe

Nearly forgot to put a photo of the sealions basking by pier at Fisherman's Wharf, where we had our lunch

After two hectic days we decided to not go so far, picking up on a few things in Oakland we hadn't seen. Breakfast out at a local cafe started our rather late start today

Nearly forgot to put this rather excellent photo on from our visit to Oakland Museum yesterday and the dressing up area. I set the trend, several other grown ups did the same after me